Jury Instructions

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Vahan Kelerchian

Case No.: 18-1320

Officials: HAMILTON, BARRETT, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Jury Instructions

Federal law imposes tight restrictions on private possession of machineguns and laser gunsights but allows law enforcement agencies to purchase and use both machineguns and laser sights. This appeal concerns criminal conspiracies among a firearms dealer and law enforcement officers to fool manufacturers into thinking they were selling to local police forces when the machineguns and laser sights were instead going into private hands.

Defendant-appellant Vahan Kelerchian was a licensed firearms dealer. His co-conspirators were Joseph Kumstar, the Deputy Chief of the Lake County Sheriff’s Department in Indiana, and Ronald Slusser, a patrolman who was the armorer for the department’s SWAT team. The trio defrauded firearms manufacturer Heckler & Koch and the laser sight producer Insight Technologies into selling them machineguns and laser sights restricted by law for law enforcement and military use. After many fraudulent transactions, the three were indicted on several charges. Kumstar and Slusser pleaded guilty. Kelerchian went to trial and was convicted on four counts of conspiracy and four counts of making false writings. On appeal, Kelerchian raises numerous issues, but we affirm his convictions on all counts. In Parts I and II, we provide the factual and procedural background for Kelerchian’s arguments. In Part III, we analyze his numerous challenges to his convictions.

Affirmed

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.